Everything I love is on the table
by Veranda
Summary: Steve's mouth quirked up in what was almost a smile. "I haven't seen you in twelve years," he said and stood carefully, stepping around Tony who seemed frozen in place. "Do you want a cup of coffee?"


a/n: One shot tie-in with the current run of Captain America, taking place after Cap #9 and Uncanny Avengers #10. However, this fic somehow manages to require almost no context whatsoever. Lucky you.

Title is from "Don't Swallow the Cap" by The National, and I just realized how that sounds.

* * *

It was 2 am. The Brooklyn side streets were emptying. Tony pulled the hood of his grey sweatshirt forward and lowered his eyes as he passed a warmly lit bar. A girl with tattoos running up the length of both arms sat on an upturned trashcan, bent in quiet conversation. She laughed, and he caught a glimpse of her forked tongue. Her eyes were black. They glittered.

Tony cut to the right, brushing his fingers over the grooved, cool metal of a street sign. The sound of ice clinking in glasses followed him round the corner and he caught a glimpse of city lights between two brownstones. Manhattan.

Steve's super-secret Brooklyn hideout loomed.

Tony didn't knock, just vaulted the low iron fence and disappeared through the false wall at the side like a ghost.

* * *

Steve was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. His hands were folded, clenched, resting on the cherry finish. The cool light from the streetlamp outside made his hair glow silver. Tony stood and watched him because he didn't want the moment to end but Steve bowed his head by inches, and something about his posture made Tony ache, so he stepped on the creaky floorboard, third from the left. Steve tensed.

"This is really fucking depressing," Tony said, and watched the coiled muscle of Steve's back relax by degrees under the thin t-shirt. "Even for you."

"Tony," Steve said. The word sounded rusty.

"Yeah," Tony said slowly, and rounded the table to stand across from him. Steve stared at his hands like he was steeling himself, and then looked up at Tony, something completely unreadable on his face.

"What did Jan tell you?"

"Nothing," Tony said, eyeing the bandages around Steve's torso, visible through his shirt. "She was sleeping in my workshop when I got back. She said to come to Brooklyn. What the hell happened?"

Steve was hunched in that way that was easy to spot if you knew where to look, babying his ribs. He was covered in the fading evidence of a monumental beating. He looked…hollow. Insubstantial.

"Steve," Tony said, and made a move towards him, but something made him pull up short.

Steve's mouth quirked up in what was almost a smile. "I haven't seen you in twelve years," he said, and stood carefully, stepping around Tony, who seemed frozen in place. "Do you want a cup of coffee?"

"Yes," Tony said. "You haven't…you…"

"Arnim Zola trapped me in an alternate dimension," Steve said in that strange casual tone that always accompanied his greatest hardships. "I didn't think I'd ever…"

Steve put on the kettle. Tony sank slowly into the chair nearest him, knuckles white on the edge of the table. He could feel Steve's eyes on him. He couldn't quite breathe.

It had to be some kind of a joke, the way Steve lost decades like car keys. The way he got older and older but never aged.

"Did you kill him?" he said finally, staring at the scuffed kitchen floor. His voice was strange. He cleared his throat. "Because if you didn't, I'm going to."

* * *

A cup of black coffee steamed on the porcelain rim of the tub. Steve sat quietly on the closed lid of the toilet, his bright eyes locked on Tony, who crouched in front of him. Tony's long fingers worked under the hem of his shirt. The warm pads of his thumbs pressed gently against smooth muscle.

"Arms up," he said, and Steve gamely let Tony pull the t-shirt off over his head.

"I keep wanting to ask what I've missed," Steve said, and stole a sip of Tony's coffee. Tony glanced up at him.

"It's still the end of the world," he said, and cut the bandages away.

The gash was devastating, jagged. It hurt to look at. A line of black stitches ran the length of it.

"You cut him out," Tony breathed, his hands hovering over the evidence, as if he hadn't believed it until now.

"He was in my head," Steve said. "He was changing me."

"Nothing changes you," Tony said. He was up on his knees now. He reached for a round tin on the edge of the counter.

Steve laughed. The sound was hard and angry, so Tony reached for him instead.

"Steve," he said, and rested his hands on either side of his head, pushing his fingers into the soft blonde hair behind his ears. "Nothing. Changes you. You are tough as fuck. Do you hear me?"

Steve looked for a moment like the kid who'd woken up under Tony's careful watch, blue lipped and young in Captain America's tattered uniform. And Tony knew better than anyone that Steve hadn't changed. He drifted. Frozen.

"I painted you all over the walls of a cave," Steve said and clenched his jaw.

Tony let one hand move down to cup Steve's face. He smoothed a thumb over his cheek and Steve's eyes fell closed. Tony sighed. "When was the last time you slept?"

"I have no idea," Steve said, and when Tony dipped his fingers in the tin of salve and pressed them to the termination of the half-healed gash, just next to his perfect hipbone, Steve's muscles jumped under his skin.

"Still ticklish," Tony said, and Steve huffed a quiet laugh.

* * *

It was 4 am. He was propped against Steve's headboard. Steve was curled against him, breathing softly. Tony was down to his thin sleeveless undershirt, and the cold blue glow at the center of his chest washed over the sheets. He shifted them both so that the hard edge of the implant wouldn't press against the crown of Steve's head. Steve's eyes blinked open.

"Sorry," Tony said. "Go back to sleep."

Steve closed his eyes after a moment, and Tony brushed his hand through his hair absently and stared out the window.

When Tony was sure he was sleeping, Steve said, "There was a boy. I…raised him. My son."

Tony moved his hand to rest warm and heavy against the nape of Steve's neck and waited.

"He died," Steve said.

"When?" Tony said, his voice carefully even.

"Four days ago."

Tony clenched his jaw so hard he saw stars. He was shaking. Or Steve was.

"What was his name?"

Steve took a deep, careful breath, but it wobbled at the end.

"Ian."

* * *

Tony woke up with the sun in his eyes, tucked neatly in Steve's bed, alone. There was someone in the kitchen, so Tony followed the sound.

Steve's hair was damp. He held a mug out to Tony like a peace offering, sheepish, which was ridiculous, but not unexpected. Tony hopped up on the counter and took it. "Did you go for a run?"

"Yeah," Steve said.

"What time is it?"

"Five thirty," Steve said, and palmed his own cup.

"Five thirty," Tony repeated, and frowned at him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Steve shrugged, loose, and leaned against the counter so their elbows bumped together.

"Look," Steve said.

"Nope," Tony said.

Steve's eyebrows drew together. He glanced at Tony sidelong. "You don't even know what I was—"

"Yes I do, so just…shut up."

"Fine," Steve said. After a long silence, both of them sipping their coffee and staring straight ahead, Tony grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him in roughly, pressing his lips to his hair, his temple, the corner of his mouth. Steve adjusted the angle. He crushed their mouths together. Kissed him like he was drowning.

Tony fumbled for the counter. He set his cup down so that coffee sloshed over the edge and got both hands on Steve, locking him in place as if he might drift off, in the usual way.

"God, God," Steve was murmuring. "I missed—"

"C'mere," Tony said, pressing his knees into Steve's side. "C'mon."

He tangled a fist in the back of Steve's shirt and wrestled it off, leaving his pale hair sticking up. Steve pressed their foreheads together. Said, "oh," like a sob.

"Hey," Tony said. "Hush. I've got you."

Tony rolled onto his back, laughing. The sun was in his eyes again. Steve sprawled beside him, flushed, all pale freckled skin and gold hair. He was hard to look at. He was hard to look away from.

"Jesus," Tony breathed. "Fuck."

Steve rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

Tony pillowed his head in the crook of Steve's arm.

"I grew a beard," Steve said, suddenly.

Tony froze. "What?"

"I grew a beard. Like, a full…beard."

"You grew a _beard?_" Tony said, rolling up on one arm to stare down at him. "How'd that look with your very serious crew cut?"

"No, I grew my hair out too." He made a vague gesture in the vicinity of his shoulders, indicating the length. "Here."

"Are you kidding?"

Steve brushed his hand over his short hair, thoughtful. "No."

"Oh my God," Tony said.

"Calm down."

"You have to grow it back," Tony said. "You have to."

"I don't—"

"You _have to_."

"It looked terrible with the uniform," Steve said, prim, and Tony collapsed against his side, laughing soundlessly. The bed shook.

"Oh my God," he managed. "No, you have to, it would be, that's so, so…_hot_, I—"

So Steve kissed him, because sometimes that was the only way to shut him up, and wasn't that how they'd ended up here in the first place. Always back at square one, square one being the two of them, and nothing changed.


End file.
